ANDOVER TOWNSHIP -- The Newton Braves football team received its North 1, Group 2 state championship rings in one final team get-together at the Hillside Park barn on Sunday afternoon.

"It's great to get everyone back together again," senior running back Chase Cramer said. "This is like the last kind of hoorah were everybody is together. All the families are here. Obviously, this is exciting getting this. This is one of the best parts about winning a state championship. It's a cool day."

The ring ceremony comes a little more than three months after Newton defeated Lakeland, 28-14, at Kean University in the North 1, Group 2 state championship game to complete an perfect 12-0 season and win the first state title in the 99 years of the program.

The rings were designed by the 19 senior football players and were donated to the team by Thorlabs.

"It really just has a little bit of everything," senior quarterback Luke Young said. "In the inside, we have our saying, 'Happy, never satisfied.' We won the league and went undefeated in the regular season and that wasn't good enough for us. We wanted to win it all and go undefeated the whole season.

"On the outside, we just have the whole Brave logo. We're a full team and that really just symbolizes the team. We got the state championship, the group on the side and our helmet with our number and our name on it."

The ceremony began with a 14-minute photo montage on a projector to relive the memories of the season before the players were presented with their rings.

"It takes you right back," Newton head coach Matt Parzero said. "You're able to see and feel like you're in that moment once again. We were talking to the players and it goes so fast. Eventually, if they go off and get married it's kind of like a wedding. You do all of this preparation for one day and a couple of hours, and it just goes by so fast."

Newton High School principal Jeff Waldron said a few words and told a few anecdotes about the example the football players set. He spoke of how the Newton football program is about a lot more than winning and how the legacy of this team will live on for years and years, even though this group of seniors will be moving on.

Five Newton seniors will be playing football at the college level. Cramer, the New Jersey Herald's Player of the Year, will be playing at Lycoming College, in Williamsport, Pa. Defensive end Jonathan Van Ness and linebacker Will Larsen will be playing together on the same team at Albright College, in Reading, Pa.

Young is still deciding between The College of New Jersey, Carnegie Mellon University and Susquehanna University.

Wide receiver Jaiden Elliot started to earn some more interest following his outstanding performance against Lakeland on the biggest stage where he came down with acrobatic catch after acrobatic catch to help his team win the title. He finished with five catches for 101 yards and two touchdowns.

Elliot is deciding between the University of Delaware and The College of New Jersey.

The ceremony allowed everyone to be in one place again after the players did their different things during the winter. For many of them -- even after a few months of reflection -- it still hasn't all sunk in yet.

"It really still hasn't hit," Young said. "You still just feel like next year after all the other sports are done, you're going to come in the summer and start working out again. I think that's when it will really hit a lot of us and we'll realize we're really not coming back. All the seniors, we don't have much time left here at Newton before we continue with the rest our lives, so we're just trying to cherish this moment this best we can."

"It's very sad," Cramer said. "It's really hard to get over it. It's a big change going from every Friday night playing in front of hundreds to sometimes thousands of people. Being with the guys in practice every day, every weekend -- no matter what you do, it's always with the guys.

"It was different, it was hard to adjust and I missed it a lot. There's nothing I can look back and say I regret or I wish I did this or that. I did everything the right way. I'm happy with the way everything turned out. It was a great ending."

Meanwhile, Parzero and his staff will be dining with the New York Giants at the Legacy Club at MetLife Stadium on March 23rd after receiving a grant for $4,000 from the team as they begin preparations to try to do this all again in the fall.

"We're going there as a staff to get the check," Parzero said. "I don't know if it will be one of those big golf checks like Happy Gilmore, but we're going to take it and we're going to use it for our program to get some new supplies."